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Thursday, 1 December 2016

Sanction Without Warrant

Especially considering how many British nationals do not hold passports, there was no more chance of sending the children of illegal immigrants to the back of the queue for school places than there is of requiring us all to produce our papers before being treated by the NHS.

But Theresa May has herself caused this story to be leaked.

That way, there is no need for the news to be dominated, as it ought to be, by the devastating report into benefit sanctions.

People have been reduced to utter penury because their buses had been one minute late, or because they could not have afforded the fares and had therefore walked for miles, or because they had had job interviews, or because the staff member for whom they had turned up on time had been late.

And all for nothing. Absolutely nothing.

None of this has ever saved a single penny. Nor has any of it ever helped anyone at all into work.

Consider that Iain Duncan Smith ended up resigning rather than continue to administer a regime that had been supported by all three of last year's unsuccessful candidates for the Labour Leadership, by Owen Smith, and by everyone who is ever mentioned as a potential alternative to Jeremy Corbyn.

But then, with his CV, Duncan Smith would be sanctioned by any JobCentre in the country. As, for the same reason, would Andrea Leadsom.

In reality, like May, and like Margaret Thatcher before them, Leadsom is nothing more than a professional rich man's wife, whose husband's wealth enabled her to pursue a political career over the heads of more capable people who had had to work for a living.

But at least May, for fairly obvious reasons, does not think that women without children have no stake in society. She is Prime Minister only because the alternative really was as bad as that.